By Irwin Jerome
All over the world, political speech and activism is being criminalized, no matter how peaceful, non-violent and warranted the protests may be. No where better can this criminalization be found than in Palestine where, for decades, Israeli military occupation forces continue to brutally suppress Palestinian’s people peaceful civil disobedience so much so that some organizations, like the Center for Constitutional Rights, even characterize Israel’s racist actions as The Palestine Exception to free speech. This continues to be the case in spite of the fact that the U.N. Security Council reaffirmed, in 2016, with its Resolution 2334, that Israel’s establishment of settlements in Palestine territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem – site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest mosque, and place where Palestinians, if ever allowed, would make the capital of their new Palestinian State. Israel’s unflagging denial of Equality, Human Rights, Religious Freedom & Human Dignity constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and poses a constant major obstacle to the vision of two States living side-by-side in peace and security within internationally-recognized borders.
Yet in light of the current, on-going non-violent protests by Palestinian’s against Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinians their religious right and freedom to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the grievous nature of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing, fascist Likud Party are either totally ignored or downplayed by the international corporate media and nowhere more so than in the United States. The fact that the United States – politically, ideologically, religiously – has long had Israel’s back and covered for it, no matter what vile thing it has ever done to the Palestinians, now is being further underscored by the United States Government’s outrageous attempt to pass an Anti-Boycott Bill that seeks to criminalize any private U.S. citizen, business or corporation, anywhere in the world, and make it a felony for whomever attempts to participate in any internationally-sanctioned Boycott, Divestment or Sanction (BDS) movement against Israel for whatever actions it continues to heinously take against the Palestinian peoples.
The White American Christian Right and White Jewish Right are equally violently-opposed to the BDS Movement that seeks to once and for all put an end to the illegal settler movement of the West Bank and ghettoizing of Gaza in Palestine. At their core, no matter how vile, evil or intolerant action each may have taken against others in the world, they hold fast to the same racist, fascist, authoritarian values that also have been held, at different points in recent history, by a host of other countries like South Africa, Britain, Germany, Japan and too many others to even mention.
Suffice it to say that within the human species it would simply seem to be a basic weakness or flaw in its basic DNA that, since the beginning of its evolution, has condemned the species, over and over again, to commit the same fatal impulses that, as time goes on, imperils the very essence of life itself; and that, as the species continues to intellectually evolve or devolve its scientific abilities, continues to invent ever more diabolical ways, catastrophic weaponry and toxic substances to bring about the cataclysmic end of all life forms.
However argumentative this point of view may be, an even cursory examination of the modern historical record – and in particular how White America’s violent brand of so-called democracy, and White Israel’s similar brand of so-called Zionism first came to be – quickly reveals how each since has abominably treated all peoples of different racial backgrounds and religious beliefs who have ever come into their midst – Aboriginals, indigenous, Mexicans, Black Africans, Arabs, Muslims and other non-Christian, non-Jewish peoples – which leads one to arrive at the only conclusion possible. Namely, that whatever each is now doing in the world, no matter how self-delusional or self-destructive it may be, there is no other sane rationale or logic to explain away the actions that each continues to pursue. The historical record speaks for itself!
Nowhere clearer can this now be seen than with America and Israel’s vigorously attempt to try to utterly destroy the BDS Movement in the world that seeks to stop all the madness in Israel and Palestine before it sucks the world down the rabbit hole towards yet a third world war and ultimate self-immolation. It’s like the human species refuses, or lacks the capacity, to learn from the madness once committed by those like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, Japan, the Afrikaner National Party in South Africa or whomever else has ever subscribed to the same racist, fascist tendencies to create the world in the way they would like it to become.
The world once had the will to stop the Hitler, Hirohito and Botha but does it now have the same will to stop Trump’s America or Netanyahu’s Israel? Or has the world become: too propagandized by the international corporate media’s bevy of Rupert Murdoch’s, AIPAC’s, J Street’s and Christian hardcore Broadcast Networks; too smothered by the influences of so many alt-right Talk Radio, Blogs, Websites, TV and print media networks that stifle any independent intellectual thought; too economically compromised by the corporate Wall Street sector, ruthlessly controlled by Goldman Sachs-type banksters and gangsters that hold every citizen and nation so tightly by the short hairs, or; is the citizenry simply just too corrupt or impotent to undertake any independent moral, ethical actions?
Meanwhile, as: the U.S. Congress continues to mull over its latest Anti-Democratic, Anti-Boycott Bill; while Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who politically holds in his hands the fate of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, continues to vacation in the United States; Israel’s PM Netanyahu continues his anti-Palestinian propaganda campaign in Europe; and PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas continues to remain in distant China; the Palestinian people, once again, are left all alone to try to defend, as best they can, their inherent right to pray and worship in East Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque or wherever else they would in their ancient lands of Palestine.
Jerome Irwin is a freelance writer and author of “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a three volume account of his travels as a spiritual sojourner, during the 1960’s, 70’s & 80’s, among Native American & First Nation peoples in North America. It encompasses the Indigenous Spiritual Renaissance & Liberation Movements that emerged throughout North America during the civil rights era. During this period of sojourn, Irwin also underwent a Lakota hanbleceya vision quest, under the tutelage of Joe Thunder Hawk and his clan members, and received the name Twin Rainbow that symbolizes a healing bridge between the cultures of the West & East. and their many ensuing conflicts. In addition to being a long-time community activist and political organizer among his people, Twin Rainbow-Irwin has authored over the years a number of environmental, political, cultural, spiritual articles with a special focus on Native Americans, First Nations, Australian aboriginals, Israel, Gaza, Palestine and Syria. Irwin also is the publisher of The Wild Gentle Press.
